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Saturday, October 21, 2017

REVIEW: Wishbones by Virginia Macgregor

Wishbones by Virginia Macgregor was a book that I wasn't expecting to be sent for review and that would normally mean that it isn't as high a priority to read as other books in my possession. But something about this book intrigued me. I liked the idea of it being set in the UK, I'm all for supporting UKYA of course. I also like the idea of a book exploring elements of mental health and the idea around the story of a very obese woman. And while I had hoped to really like this book ... I felt that the idea of the book was better than the actuality of the story.

Feather is our main character in this book. She really wants two things out of life: for her mother to get better and to win the junior swim championships. The second goal is pretty straightforward, she needs to work hard and concentrate. However it's the first goal that really proves more challenging.

On New Year's Eve, Feather comes home to find her mother in a diabetic coma. This is obviously very traumatic for her and her parents. Feather is determined to do whatever it takes to help her mother become healthier. She thinks maybe it'll just take a better diet and some exercise to fix things, however, Feather soon realises that her mother's health, like most things in life, are so much more complicated and Feather begins this detective journey in order to unravel her mother's personal history and get to the root causes of her mom's obesity.

My main problem with Wishbones ended up being two-fold. The first is that Feather's voice felt very young. She comes across as being really innocent and naive, much younger than one would imagine she would be respective of her age. It wasn't that she was young or naive that was the problem, it was that she didn't feel believable for her age. The second problem was that the author's voice is quite patronising throughout. It really started to grate on my nerves but wasn't such a persistent problem that it made me quit reading but it did hamper my enjoyment of the story. Which is a shame, as there was elements of the story that I were really intriguing.

British Books Challenge 2017

Me Me Me

I've been running my book blog, Fluttering Butterflies, for the past (nearly) 9 years and have recently taken up booktubing on my own channel, cloveryness, as well as collaboratively with the Bookish Brits.